The latest is perhaps inevitable, given Duterte's frankness about his criminality and admiration for thugs: he has described himself as a "fascist" and vowed to crack down on peaceful opposition groups like Bagong Alyansang Makabayan ("New Patriotic Alliance" or BAYAN), a group aligned with students, trade unions, human rights groups, and opposition politicians.

Duterte attributed his embrace of fascism to Trump and the shift in US politics, stating "I will follow America, since they say that I am an American boy. OK, granted, I will admit that I am a fascist. I will categorize you already as a terrorist."

Duterte is part of a pack of authoritarian global leaders whose "dominance" style has come into vogue in concert with increased economic insecurity and inequality.

"The timing of the threat is not surprising since Duterte and Trump reaffirmed U.S.-Philippine relations," Reyes said. "Trump has increased military aid to the Philippines – Duterte may be thinking that U.S. support for counter-insurgency, terror listing and Martial Law are enough to defeat the revolutionary forces.

"His imagined 'conspiracy' between the NPA and the legal organizations under Bayan is meant to justify increased political repression in order to eliminate the most effective resistance to fascist dictatorship, human rights abuses, anti-people economic impositions and increased U.S. intervention."

On Tuesday, Duterte also threatened to shut down mines that pay "revolutionary taxes" to the Maoist combatants, accusing mine operators of depositing money in bank accounts maintained by the fighters in exchange for allowing their operations to continue.

"If I go against the communists, then everybody has to reconfigure their relationship with the New People's Army," he said. "If you support them financially, I will close you down."

Rudy Giuliani fatfingered a tweet last week and inadvertently referenced a nonexistent URL (G-20.in); some clever wag registered the URL and stood up a static landing page that reads "Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country."

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